Featured Article — Office Prevent Express users from deleting server-based Inboxes
Exchange Server offers users lots of benefits, including the fact that a user's messages, contacts, and other items reside on the server where they can be backed up. While leaving all data on the server means the data is available to users from any location and through several methods, it also creates the possibility that users accessing the Exchange Server through Outlook Express could clean out their Inbox, downloading all of their messages to the local computer and deleting them from the server.
To prevent this, you can disable POP3 at the server and disallow POP3 access to user mailboxes. Users can then access their Inboxes with IMAP or Outlook Web Access (OWA) and eliminate the potential for deleting everything. The user could also configure Outlook Express to leave a copy of messages on the server, but that's a haphazard fix at best.
If a user does clean out his or her Inbox with Outlook Express, there's an easy way to repopulate it. Open Outlook Express on the computer where the user's Outlook profile exists, or create a profile on the computer that points to the user's Exchange Server mailbox. Then, in Outlook Express, choose File | Export | Messages and simply export the Outlook Express Inbox to the user's Exchange Server account. |
